My Side of the Story
by UniqueInsanity
Summary: A look into Sara's thoughts on feelings since the split. A post FMN fic really, but around 13x19. R&R :) x


_'What a slut time is. She screws everybody.' - John Green._

_**xxx**_

Who said that time heals all pain? If you've ever been through a breakup, you've heard it. 'Just give it some time.' or 'Give it a few weeks, you'll feel better then.' If you've heard that after a breakup, you know just how empty those words really are, and how they don't give you any sense of comfort. You just grit your teeth, bare a smile and nod.

If I'm honest, it only makes me feel worse. I know they are trying their best, they are trying to support me, but it does nothing to help. Maybe that is what makes me feel worse. I have never liked anyone pitying me, and I could never stand people trying to reach out to me, I always pulled away, before anyone could learn too much about me.

I've heard it from everyone since the news broke in the lab. I'm sure the grapevine loved hearing another Sara Sidle centered story. Especially when it involves Grissom. From the very moment I stepped foot in this lab, tongues were wagging, unable to stop themselves, fabricating tales and spreading rumors. Not a day went by where I was able to walk down the hallway without hearing the sharp whispers chasing behind me, feeling the scrutinizing eyes watching me.

I felt like a piece of evidence, under the microscope, the harsh fluorescent lights blinding, revealing every imperfection and flaw, looking for another detail that might be of interest to those who thirst for gossip in the lab.

After I returned from Costa Rica, things had changed. There was no more sordid accusations of an affair, and no whispers of Natalie Davis followed me around. People knew the truth, Grissom and I were married, there was no longer any attraction to our relationship. It wasn't new and juicy, it was just a normal marriage now. They moved onto others, more interesting ones, and I didn't miss the attention; I relished in it.

Now, everything had changed again. Eyes followed me, lingering on my every movement. Whispers assaulted my ears, no matter how hard I tried to block them out. I did my best to ignore them, I put on the brave face, and walked with my head high, my eyes focused on something in the distance.

It was worse when it came from the team. They knew me. It was harder to hide from them. From Nick and Greg and Brass especially. They have known me the longest, but it hasn't taken Russell, Finn or Morgan long to get to know me, and what to read from my body language, what I said, or what I didn't say.

I hated Basderic for what he had done, of course I did. I wanted him to pay for it. For a few fleeting moments, I had been going to serve my own justice. I had come so close to it, to not taking Greg's call, and going into his home myself. In those moments, I didn't care what happened to me. I had lost everything. My husband had left me, my job was on the line, my friends were doubting me.

I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that made me answer the phone, to listen to Greg's reasoning, to the plan they had devised. It brought me back to one of my first cases in Vegas, a murder on an airplane. It was the conversation we had afterwards that had stuck with me, on whether or not we could commit murder. I had said no. With no hesitation, I had given my answer that I could never commit murder.

The more I think about it, the more it worries me. I had been prepared to take his life that night. People have boundaries, lines that you shouldn't cross. I was pushed closer to mine than I had ever been, and now I somehow had a greater insight into how some things happened.

I started to visit my mother more. I understood now why she killed my father. She was pushed over her limit. After years of abuse, watching her children being abused and living with an alcoholic husband, she snapped. It happens. It had almost happened to me that night.

Maybe it was that fear that stopped me. The unconscious realisation that I might become like my mother if I killed Basderic that night. It was a constant fear of mine as I grew up, that I would be like my mother, that I would inherit the disease that had taken her away from me, or worse, the 'murder gene' as I had once told Grissom.

What annoyed me the most, even now, and even when I thought back to what Natalie had put me through, the worst of it was what they had made me reveal. I had grown up in a world where you spoke to nobody, where I was told daily that what happened in our house never left our house. I was warned off of confiding in friends, and especially against anybody in a position of authority.

I felt uncomfortable when people gave me any attention, and I liked to keep things to myself. Because of what Natalie had done, my relationship with Grissom was revealed, earlier than either of us were ready for. Basderic had brought the revelation of the breakdown of my marriage. Both were things I was not prepared for my friends to know yet, let alone the entire lab.

I needed a chance to come to terms with it myself, to understand what was going on before I told anyone else, before they started offering their advice, their experience. None of it would do any good. None of them knew our relationship, and none of them knew exactly what I felt for him, and what he felt for me.

I always got the feeling none of them really understood our relationship, and that, we were happy about. We didn't need anyone else to understand it as long as we did. And for that reason, nothing anyone said to me could make any difference, because they didn't know anything about us.

They don't know that Grissom snores, and I usually end up poking him in the middle of the night, and once he rolls onto his back, he stops. They don't know how once he is on his back, his arm snakes out and pulls me to him, holding me close.

They don't know how when I wake in the middle of the night after a particularly horrible nightmare, I would slip out of bed, not wanting to wake Grissom, and go outside, and light up the odd cigarette that I kept in my purse, just for times like that. Grissom would follow me, but not outside, he knew that I didn't like him seeing me smoking, and the smoke only irritated him. He would make me tea, and sit in silence with me until I was ready to talk or go back to bed.

Everyone knew I wasn't a morning person, but how many of them could claim to know that neither was Grissom? That most mornings we needed two alarms to get us up, and even at that is was a struggle. We lapped up each and every minute we could share in bed together, even if it was just lying next to each other, and only managed to pull ourselves up at the very last minute.

Did they know Grissom's favorite thing to do was to lie in bed, or on the sofa with me, and read to me, or have me read to him. His favorite Shakespeare Sonnet was number 130. Most of the time, he preferred poetry. It was relaxing, a nice break for both of us, to let our minds escape and wander. To me, Grissom could read a phonebook, and I would gladly lay back and listen to each and every word.

Did they know that Grissom always complained about my cold feet, and that I would put them up against his just to annoy him. Did they know his side of the bed was the left and mine was the right? Did they know our first kiss was after a roller coaster ride he had taken me on in San Francisco? Did they know that he preferred my hair curly, and I liked him wearing blue? Or that the sound of grinding teeth made Grissom's skin crawl, and anything that crawled made me squirm.

They might know us as individuals, but what did they really know about us as a couple? Nothing. So, how could they offer me advice on something they knew nothing about? It might have taken time for them to get over a relationship breakdown, or even a marriage breakdown.

This was different. This was Grissom and I. This was the love of my life. The man who had stolen my heart from the moment he stepped out from behind the podium and introduced himself. This was the man I had given my heart, soul and mind to. I had never believed true love was possible, maybe that was from growing up with my parent's loveless marriage, and being bounced from foster home to foster home. Meeting this man made me rethink everything I had believed. He taught me that true love existed, and so much more than that; soul mates existed.

I was never in any doubt that he is my soul mate. We are meant to be together. Or, so I had thought. It just so happened that Chris had been sick when the opportunity to go to Dr. Gil Grissom's seminar came around. So, instead of sending the CSI Level 2, my supervisor had pushed for me to go. It was luck that I ended up there. The request could have been denied, or Chris could have been okay to go.

I shuddered at the thought of having never met him. Even now, in the wake of the breakdown of my marriage, I never regretted a moment we had together. I never regretted meeting him, falling in love with him, giving him everything I had.

I think everyone knew I was lying when I said I was fine, but it was a shield for me. They knew not to ask any more questions when I said it, so I could hide behind it. I wouldn't be held under the microscope for examination anymore. My days of that were over.

I was struggling, there was no doubt about that. Maybe I was even putting it too lightly to just simply say struggling. The drinking and sleeping pill cocktail continued. My smoking habit turned from once in a while to a daily ritual. It was the one thing I looked forward to when I woke up, coffee and a cigarette before I had to drag myself into work. And drag was putting it lightly.

Don't get me wrong, I love work, and it is the only thing keeping me going, being able to distract myself and solve someone elses problems while my own are getting to big to face. What I don't like is where I work. Everywhere I turn, I think of him.

If we was in Russell's office, all I could think of was the many times I sat opposite Grissom there, discussing a case, discussing us. I remembered the chaste, covert kisses we managed to steal in the darkness of his office before shift started, or in the middle of a tough case. It was the most we would ever risk in work, despite how we both had fantasies of doing so much more.

Everytime I opened the fridge in the breakroom, I expected to see another one of his experiments for us to complain about. When Nick would talk about bugs, my heart would leap into my mouth, because I knew that was what Grissom had sparked in him. Grissom had inspired Nick to follow entomology, and it should be Grissom sprouting off the Latin names none of us would remember, not Nick.

Walking down the hallway, I expected to see him turning the corner, a case file in hand. In the break room I expected to see him with the white slips again, handing out our assignments. The locker room was my room of solace in work. It was where he looked for me when I hid myself away after a tough case in work. I still went there, as if I expected him to come for me, to take me home and make everything okay again.

My heart skipped a beat when I went to the morgue, I expected to see him standing over a body with Doc Robbins, discussing a case, or both talking about some new fact they had found, or discussing the results of one of Grissom's experiments.

And when I went to PD, I was haunted by the memories of some of my darker moments with Grissom. My DUI offence, his conversation with Lurie, and how we met after my last interview with Hannah West.

Even when I walked to the trace lab, I was, just for a moment, transported back to the time I left Vegas, after I kissed Grissom, very publically in the lab, and just walked away.

No matter where I went, I was tormented by the memory of him.

At home it was worse. Almost unbearable, even. I could see him everywhere I looked. In the kitchen cooking, in the study reading over another proposal for our research grant, out in the garden with Hank, asleep on the sofa waiting on me to return from work, lying in bed waiting for me to join him or running a bath for us to share.

As soon as I walked into the house, I was assaulted by memories of him, sharp, mocking and eager to point out my flaws and failures.

It has been almost three months since that phonecall. That phonecall that took away a part of me. Apart from a text to wish me happy birthday, I have not heard from him. On two occasions I rang him, in low, drunken moments, all I got was his voicemail. I never left a message and he never returned my calls.

All I wanted was to know why. Was that not a reasonable request? He never gave me a reason, he never gave me a chance to offer a solution, to propose some ideas as to what we could do to fix it. Because, I would do it. I have learnt that now, that I would do anything for him, because without him, I am nothing.

I am a pathetic, lonely, aging woman, with only her job to occupy herself. A job in the darkness; in death and crime. He was my light, the only thing I had in my life that gave it meaning, a purpose. Without him, I have nothing. Yeah, I might have a nice house, but it isn't a home. It's just concrete walls with some furniture. I have no family, no husband, and very few friends.

I am a broken woman, damaged and used. Morgan joked about hitting the bars, we could both find someone. I knew she was only trying to cheer me up, she was trying to draw a smile from me, and I did smile, however fake it was, and brushed off her invite. I did end up in a bar that night, not to look for men, but to look for reason in the bottom of a bottle of tequila.

Taylor Wynard was a once off, and the thought of what I had done still turned my stomach and I hated myself for what I had done. That one little discretion, an attempt to feel something, to feel anything else but the emptiness I had been feeling. It worked. The numbness had been replaced with a burning sense of self-hatred, which had simmered slightly since then. Now I just felt like I was drowning in a sea of pity, confusion and loss, clambering to try and keep myself afloat.

It was hard. Too hard sometimes. When that sea had gotten too turbulent, Grissom had been my life boat for me to cling to when I felt I was being pulled under. Now I had nothing to stop me, nothing to keep me out of the depths that I threatened to sink into and possibly never return from.

I would never find someone like him. I would never find someone I could cling to, I could give myself to so completely, who would accept me for who I am, and understand everything about me. I could never fill the Grissom shaped void that had been left in my life.

I often lay awake, in my cold, unwelcoming bed, wondering where it had all gone wrong. How had it all changed from weekend visits to Paris, sitting in Paris cafes, discovering new museums and the culture Paris had to offer. When we didn't see each other, there was constant communication, good morning and goodnight phonecalls or texts. Random updates throughout the day before we could get a chance to share a skype call.

How had that all disintegrated into weekly conversations with his voicemail, awaiting his reply through mine days later. How had everything gone so wrong? How had we gone from happily married and in love, to bitter, sad people more than likely heading over a rocky cliff towards a divorce.

Three months have passed, and I only feel worse every day, not better. Time has done nothing to help me. What can time offer me? We didn't have enough time together in the first place. Although, I don't think I could ever have enough time with him. I could be given until my last breath and still, I would use it to ask for more time with him.

I don't think I will ever get over this, and the hope will never die out. Even though Greg and Nick agreed that I can't sit around waiting forever. Yes. Yes I can. I would wait forever for him. You had to be patient with Gil Grissom. If I hadn't been patient, we would have never gotten together in the first place. I know right now, no matter how sad it might seem, that I will wait forever for the moment for him to realise it was a mistake and come back to me.

I would give it time. Not time for it to heal, because this pain would never heal. Loosing Gil Grissom would never get better for me. The only way things could get better would be to get have him back.

I will give it time.

_**xxx**_

**A/N: **This is what comes from watching Dead Air followed by Forget Me Not, followed by the GSR Retrospective video made my CBS. Thanks to Lauren for the help on this one, and her encouragement to actually post it and not leave it sitting on my computer. Hope you enjoyed, would love some feedback on this, it's a little different from what I usually do. Anyone feeling more optimistic about GSR?


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